June Levant; Actress Who Co-Hosted ‘50s Talk Show

June Levant, a vaudeville dancer and actress who co-hosted a television talk show in the mid-1950s with her late husband, comedic concert pianist and author Oscar Levant, has died. She was believed to be in her late 70s.

Levant died of pneumonia Wednesday at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center.

Growing up in New York, the former June Gilmartin Gale and her sisters Joan, Jane and Jean were known as the dancing Gale Quadruplets. The girls were actually two sets of twins, 14 months apart in age, and forever feared having that fact discovered. They appeared at the Paramount and Palace theaters in New York and were in George White’s “Scandals” on Broadway.

When she was 19, June Gale moved to Hollywood with her mother and Jean, hoping to become an actress. She was soon under contract to 20th Century Fox and performed in the films “Pigskin Parade” and “Pardon Our Nerve.” She met Levant while she was making Daryl F. Zanuck’s “Sing Baby Sing” in 1936.

The couple married Dec. 1, 1939, and lived in either New York or Los Angeles until his death in 1972. June Levant became known as a very loyal wife, sometimes referred to as “Hollywood’s only saint,” for helping her husband work through an addiction to prescription drugs.

In 1956, the couple hosted “The Oscar Levant Show,” a local talk show on KCOP-TV. After an on-air spat, she left and began hosting her own similar program, also at KCOP.

After his death, she was briefly married to screenwriter Henry Ephron.

Levant is survived by daughters Marcia Levant, Lorna Clements and Amanda Carmel and three grandchildren.

The family has suggested that memorial donations be sent to the American Film Institute or to the Motion Picture and Television Fund, which supports a retirement home and hospital for entertainers in Woodland Hills.